Woman told she can't take emotional support hamster on flight, flushes hamster down toilet. Thoughts?

Belen Aldecosea, a student in Texas, called Spirit Airlines twice and was told both times that she could bring her certified emotional support animal, Pebbles the hamster, on board a flight to Florida.

When she arrived, she was confronted by staff who told her rodents were not allowed. Spirit has admitted that representatives did give false information to Aldecosea.

"... She says an airline representative suggested flushing Pebbles down an airport toilet, a step that Spirit denies... Panicked and needing to return home promptly to deal with a medical issue, For hours, Aldecosea said, she struggled with what to do.

She contacted at least six rental car agencies, but no cars were available during the busy holiday season and she wasn’t old enough to rent a car anyway. A Greyhound bus would have taken days to get to South Florida.

With her flight boarding soon, she pondered whether to just let Pebbles free outside. She said she considered it more humane to end her life right away, and not let her run around scared in the cold, only to die getting hit by a car.

“I didn’t have any other options,” she said.

"Aldecosea... agonized for hours before doing the unthinkable... She was scared. I was scared. It was horrifying trying to put her in the toilet,” Aldecosea said. “I was emotional. I was crying. I sat there for a good 10 minutes crying in the stall

So update: Spirit Airline statement"Our reservation representative, unfortunately, did misinform the Guest that a hamster was permitted to fly as an emotional support animal on Spirit Airlines,” the spokesperson told the paper. “Rodents of any kind are not allowed on board for health and safety reasons.”

“We did offer the Guest a voucher for the inconvenience, but we never heard back from her,” the spokesperson added."

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You have to know when you sign up for having an emotional support animal that it is not official, and it is not a service animal. What you get is a crayon certificate that affirms your weak mental health. That said, the airline still should have known that support animals, distinctly different from service animals, are not allowed on flights. But either way, if you find yourself in that position, you do still have options other than flushing the thing down a goddamn toilet. First off, you can cancel your flight and seek medical attention in your location anyway, reconciling the differences either through insurance or by suing the airline at a later date. Second off, there are more humane ways to kill a small animal than drowning it to death in a filthy toilet stall. Human incompetence should not cost the lives of even insignificant rodents. If you fuck up, that responsibility lies on you. That's what it means to be a pet owner. It's like a step down from being a parent. You don't get to just kill it when something goes wrong, even if it isn't your fault.

Whilst I respect the ability to have an emotional support animal, I believe that there should be a restriction on what type of animal can be one. ESA's should not have to be a burden to other passengers or go against sanitation concerns. According to the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) of 1986, emotional support animals are allowed to fly in the cabin of commercial airplanes, though each airline may have their own rules and standards for how this plays out. In addition, if she actually cared about the hamster, she would not have flushed it down the toilet.

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I'm in the middle. The woman should have taken the time to check and double-check what she should do with her hamster before even booking the flight. The representative from the airline was wrong for even considering the option of flushing down that poor hamster down the toilet, which is 100% animal abuse. The woman was wrong for going through with it and actually flushing it down the toilet. During those 9 hours between the different flights, I'm sure she and the airline could have come up with a much more logical option than killing her hamster. If someone told me that I had to kill my pet, I sure as hell would have confirmed that with at least 300 other employees and managers before even entertaining the thought of doing something like that. And then I would have just canceled my flight and gone home.A whole lotta wrong took place in this case, on both sides.

In most cases, I would say that she was absolutely wrong for killing her pet and should have simply found another way home, even if it was challenging. Or found someone to adopt the pet rather than killing it.

However, given that she needed to return home immediately to deal with a medical issue, it seems like she really was put in an impossible situation. I wish she had been able to find another option but I don't really know what to think. Whether or not she is at fault, the airline was definitely at fault for providing inaccurate information (multiple times no less). That's messing with someone's life and is absolutely unacceptable.

It would have been nice if she could have found someone to adopt the hamster and take it off her hands. But maybe she couldn't, or maybe she didn't think of that. It sounds to me like she was alone in an airport, panicking, feeling trapped, living a nightmare. I don't know if she made the right choice, but I have sympathy for her situation. She was obviously tormented by the decision and felt she had no other option. I think it would take a lot for someone to kill their beloved pet, and I can only give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that it really was a last resort.

I think the airline can only really be held accountable for the misinformation that was given but they are not responsible for someone deciding to kill their, in this case, emotional support hamster. Imagine if that was a larger animal, like a dog, and someone said, you can't fly with your dog because it's too big... are you going to then strangle him to death? As a pet owner, you are responsible for the life of your pet that is in your care. Aside from that, there is no proof that she was actually told to kill the animal in the first place.

Well people with actual support animals were calling her ass out because hamster are not support animals she made that shit up. Second isn't what she did animal abuse? like pretty sure Pebbles died and honestly I think she made it up there no way in hell if you love your animal you would flush them down a airplane toilet.

really unfortunate and weird... according to her her options were limited, and the suggested something and she did it, which isn't force, but it IS annoying when a company gives you the run around telling you one thing then having a different staff member telling you another thing, the company needs to all be on the same damn page.

I doubt the airline put a gun to her head and told her to flush it down the toilet. She obviously had a choice and didn't care enough for it to find an alternative solution so she took the easy way out. Typical.

This is disgusting! This news literally ruined my day. For anyone who may not be fully informed on the situation, you may want to do some research on emotional support animals and their owners. They are not pets. This airline took advantage of her legitimate medical condition and violated her rights. Much like telling a diabetic who needs an insulin injection every 12 hours that he can't take any syringes on his 16 hour.

I'm sorry.. actually fuck it, no I'm not, that's disgusting. She should have made a different fucking choice. I hope she is kept as a pet by a giant alien but flushed down the toilet because the alien's spaceship won't allow humans on board.

Wow. Speechless. If somebody cries about his own shitty actions this is self-loathing mixed with the denial of doing the right thing. Disgusting to me. Sorry. But it exposes the deeply rooted utilitarianism that sleeps in women. She used her hamster for emoptional comfort and when he became a problem, she flushed him down the toilet. And still people are talking about how empathic women are. Someone give me a break.

Uhm I'm a woman, and I find her actions disgusting. As a serious pet owner, someone who has paid almost a thousand dollars on a $15 dollar rodent's vet bills and food, I would never do this. It's not a woman thing, it's a nasty person thing.

I don't know and don’t really care. It’s not a serious comment... although, if she needs it, sure, just muzzle it cause they don’t shut up. I mean it’s not as bad as sitting next to 2 fat dudes, a crying baby and 3 dogs that wouldn’t shut the fuck up on the same flight...

Annnnnnnnnd this is why many people can't take young women seriously. A little bit of life pressure and she succumbed by flushing a defenseless animal down a toilet. LOL. What a train wreck of a human being...

It's a fucking hamster. In 9 hours she could have mailed the thing home or had an uber take it to her house if it mattered so damn much. She obviously did this for attention. This is ridiculous, I thought this was supposed to be funny at first.

She actually does have an attorney who gave a statement "Aldoseca’s attorney, Adam Goodman, said his client’s situation was different than the one involving a woman who tried to bring her emotional support peacock onto a United Airlines flight about a week ago.

“This wasn’t a giant peacock that could pose a danger to other passengers. This was a tiny cute harmless hamster that could fit in the palm of her hand,” Goodman told the Miami Herald. "

which is surprising for sure, but in a way not so surprising given how America has a suing issue

Dogs are a lot bigger. Their bones/eardrums are larger and stronger, so they can withstand pressure changes more easily. A hamster is TINY. I'm not certain that checking it would have been any kinder than flushing it, unless I'm wrong about how pressure controlled the luggage compartment is.